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Description/Abstract

France was one of the first countries in Europe to grant suffrage rights to men (in 1848) but one of the last to include women in the franchise. This article explores the response to the introduction of universal suffrage in France in 1944 and to the first post-Liberation elections of 1945, focusing on an analysis both of the national press and the organ of the large women's organization, the Union des Femmes Françaises (UFF). It also mobilizes evidence from public opinion surveys of the period in order to gauge the popular response to women's voting rights and to measure thinking on the "Woman Question" in general. Documentary sources comprising the full results of an opinion poll of October 1944 and articles from the women's press are included. The evidence suggests that press and popular responses alike emphasized the needs of post-war reconstruction over those of women's emancipation.